Hot Seat: Jed Wallace

Jed Wallace, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, is a former San Diego County resident who served as the
chief operating officer of High Tech High and worked as a top aide to San Diego Unified Superintendent Alan Bersin. Union-Tribune editorial writer
Chris Reed recently interviewed Wallace on KOGO 600 AM. The following are edited excerpts of the interview.

QUESTION: President Obama has proved to be a strong advocate of education reform. His Race to the Top program, which will give $4.35 billion in grants to states that adopt major reforms, has helped shake up the status quo in California and many other states. How helpful has it been to have a Democratic president push reform?

ANSWER: To have a Democratic president who is behind charter schools is absolutely key. He’s also behind other broad public education reforms that make a whole lot of sense. The Race to the Top legislation in California is about trying to get those reforms in place. We wanted those K-12 reforms to get through without harm to charters, and that’s what it looks like will happen at this point.

QUESTION: There are reports that the Assembly will soon adopt the Senate’s version of legislation meant to qualify California for Race to the Top funds. But given what happened earlier this month, when the Assembly passed a version that was actually punitive to charter schools, are you worried that the legislation may yet stall?

ANSWER: I think we see pretty strong signals that it will come through on the Assembly side pretty much intact as it is.

QUESTION: Some liberals seem increasingly comfortable with charters, as opposed to vouchers helping parents put their children in private schools, because charters remain schools under government control, while vouchers take students away from public schools. Do you see a growing acceptance of charters on the left?

ANSWER: I think we’re seeing all parts of the political spectrum waking up to the possibilities of charter schools. We had last year a growth of 56,000 students in charter schools in California. That’s equivalent to the ninth-largest school district in the state kind of materializing overnight. That pace of growth is only going to accelerate. That’s because parents and educators see the charter school context as a healthier one to educate students in. As we’re being perceived as more mainstream, we’re seeing support from all walks of life, including from Democrats such as Sen. Gloria Romero of Los Angeles, a strong charter advocate who’s running for state superintendent of public instruction. We’re entering a new period.

QUESTION: Still, it’s difficult to underestimate the antipathy that teachers unions, who remain powerful in California, have for charters. In a poor neighborhood in Los Angeles in which Latino parents were pushing to change a school to charter status, there were fliers distributed warning that the parents risked deportation if they kept it up, and the assumption on everyone’s part was that United Teachers Los Angeles members were responsible. Are these hardball tactics common?